


Never Been Better

by Batwynn



Series: Frostiron Short Stories [1]
Category: Avengers, Frostiron - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Apathy, BAMF JARVIS, F/M, Loki Angst, Loki is one angry puppy, Loss of Humanity, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Moral Ambiguity, Tony Feels, Tony is a ghost, Tony is dead, Tony likes gold but not THAT much gold, Tony-centric, from the start, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-03-21 19:01:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3702529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batwynn/pseuds/Batwynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark is dead. Well, he is but he isn’t. No one can see him, or hear him, except for one person. </p><p>And that guy's really not thrilled about it, but being dead is boring, so maybe Tony will stick around this Loki character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Boo

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a collection of writing prompts/short fics

It was decent, his funeral. A lot of weird crying people Tony couldn’t remember the names of,or when he met them, or  _if_  he’d met them, and then there was Nick Fury, which Tony was so shocked at seeing there he nearly died. Again.

It’s actually a really nice day for a funeral, and even Agent Romanoff is here, looking the same as the last time he saw her—which was at his favorite doughnut place and there was a needle involved—and beside her is some dude he’s never seen before looking all together glum.

Why the hell were these no name-random faces acting all depressed over his death? He didn’t know them. This is annoying.

Tony goes around and starts shoving his ghostly fingers up their snotty noses.

Then, there’s a particularly loud sob, and Tony zeroes in on Pepper. The floating around and sticking his hands through people’s faces suddenly becomes a lot less fun. She’s a total wreck, like double the wreck she was when he came back from Afghanistan. Triple, even. She looks like someone hollowed her out and Tony hates seeing that look on her. He hates it.

Fury leans over and pats her shoulder, saying something like ‘we tried’ or 'we were too late’, and it’s almost an apology. Really close.

Good job, Fury.

The blonde dude next to miss stabby red-head is talking about something under his breath and well, Tony’s a ghost, so he gets right up in there to eaves drop.

“I thought the Director had a plan for him.”

“He did, it didn’t pan out.”

“Obviously.”

What plan?

What?

Tony sticks his fingers in the guy’s ear in frustration and goes back to messing around. If he doesn’t, he’ll start to get depressed, and that’s pointless.

Everyone’s tossing dirt on his dead body now—cheers, guys—and most of the weirdos leave. The three SHIELD people stay for a while, and there’s more meaningless nonsense from them for Pepper, who looks like she believes it about as much as Tony does.

And when they leave, it’s just him and her, like it always was.

“Tony…?”

“Yeah?”

Pepper’s taking at the grave that’s still open, not him. Because, you know, he’s not here anymore. Sort of. He is, but he’s not.

It’s complicated.

“You know how we never said things like 'I love you’ because you insisted that actions spoke louder than words… even though you always ended up doing weird things to show me… Oh,  _Tony_ … I knew. I heard you loud and clear.”

Tony moves so that he’s sitting on the stone. That way it feels like she’s talking to him, not the preserved hunk of meat that used to be him. If he could cry, he would.

Maybe he can, he feels like he’s breaking up a bit here.

Pepper straightens up, fixing her black suit jacket, wiping away the tears that keep bubbling up again, and it’s the saddest damn thing Tony’s ever seen.

“If t-that will be all, Mr. Stark,” she says, and smiles that tiny, sad smile of hers.

And then she’s gone, and Tony finds out he can cry, it’s just weird and his body is blown away by the wind the more he falls apart.

* * *

  
  
It’s so fucking boring, being dead.

The amusement of doing all the things he never did when he was alive rubs off pretty quickly. Partially because he couldn’t touch most things, but mostly because he pretty much did what he wanted when he was alive. So, there’s that.

He does stalk the people he knows, though. He can’t stop, and if he  _was_  alive, someone would probably tell him that it’s unhealthy. But, since Tony is not alive, he does whatever the fuck he wants, he doesn’t need to be healthy.

Pepper’s too hard to follow at first, so he sticks with Rhodey on Mondays, Fury for most of the week, that reporter he once had a thing with on Fridays because she has this great Pilates class, and the weekend is usually just for wandering around.

Rhodey turns out to be boring. Government secrets are old news, and as long as they keep his suits out of their hands, he couldn’t care less what they get up to. Fury, however, is pretty fun to follow. For some reason, Tony has no trouble finding people when he wants to find them, so that’s how he ends up in an underground base where they’re building this huge ship and Fury is all over place doing that directing thing. There’s interrogations, something about people with magic powers or something, (there’s a lot to follow and Tony’s attention span is worse than ever) and agents everywhere, some project out in the west that they’re mainly focused on. Something big, Howard’s name gets dropped a lot around that one.

Now  _those_  are government secrets.

But that gets boring too, because he can’t  _do_  anything with the information. There’s no one to tell.

Boring.

Fucking lonely, too, let’s not forget that.

…

And then there’s Pepper.

Two months have already passed since he died, and she’s looking good these days. (He’s not sure how he should feel about that.)

The dark circles are gone from under her eyes—it’s weird how you don’t notice things that were there until you’re not  _there_  anymore—she’s smiling again, in total control of his company (not surprising), and overall has a nice, bright feeling around her.

Maybe it’s her aura or something. Maybe he can see auras now.

Whatever.

The point is, she’s happy. Mostly. He’s a ghost, so he’s the one who gets to follow her home and walk through her walls, and catch her crying alone at night. It’s not every night, but it’s enough to make him regret ever letting her get close to him. Tony wasn’t going to die of old age, he knew that since he was 16. She doesn’t deserve this, hell,  _he doesn’t_  deserve this. No one should be mourning him like she is.

He never deserved her.

But she cries, and sometimes she talks to him, always facing the wrong direction because she can’t actually see him. Still, they have more conversations now that he’s dead than they ever did when he was alive.

Eventually she stops talking to him, but she never stops crying.

  
Tony goes back to stalking Fury. Nick Fury doesn’t cry over him.

* * *

 

  
When Loki shows up in a big burst of blue shit from this tiny cube everyone calls the Tesseract, Tony’s standing right there. Like, literally, he’s right next to Fury. (He also learns that the blonde dude at his funeral is named Clint. Or Hawkeye, whatever.)

Oh, and apparently he has  _heart_.

Tony snorts loudly, way louder than he did when he was alive because no one can hear him anyway. Loki looks at him.

Tony doesn’t even notice, people look through him all the time, and then he’s following Fury over to the cube while Loki’s doing something to people. Leaning in close, Tony can see smoke rising up from Fury’s hands when he drops the thing into a case.

He snickers again. Tony was kind of an asshole in life.

He’s kind of  _really_  an asshole in death. Death was  _boring_ , remember?

Anyway, that Loki-of-Asgard guy wants the blue cube, Fury doesn’t want to let go of his toy, and Tony’s noticing the energy build up on the ceiling there.

“So, that’s going to be bad,” he says to himself.

Clint basically says the same thing,“Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us.”

“Aww, Fury,” Tony sighs.

Loki glances at him again, brow furrowed like he can’t quite figure out why Tony’s just standing there. Tony waves at him, because the guy is obviously looking through him at something.

The god—self titled—raises his staff at him.

Selvig mentions the portal and how it’s sort of collapsing and suddenly Loki’s all business again. Tony actually flinches when Clint shoots Fury, because how fucking unexpected is that?

What even?

What’s up with his eyes, anyway? What’s up with  _all_  their eyes?

(Not you, Fury, your’s are still chocolately-goodness brown.)

Tony doesn’t have time to process this because things start moving really fast and he has no idea who to follow. This new guy is exciting, but there’s some super small part of him that’s loyal to Fury.

He wants to help.

He tries to help the director up, and of course, it fails. Not that Fury needs his ghostly help, anyway. The man’s a beast.

Things blow up.

Long story short, Tony ends up under a hundred feet of rock. It takes him a while to phase out of there, for some reason. Possibly something to do with all that excess energy floating around, keeping him locked there. So by the time he’s out, he has no idea where everyone’s gone and he’s looking more solid than usual.

Huh.

Weird.

* * *

 

Fury is easy to follow, as usual. All he has to do is focus and he’s there.

Ta-daaa!

Tony finds himself up in the air in the very ship he’d seen them working on a few months ago. It’s fancy, sure, but Tony still prefers his own designs over this monotone crap. Following Fury through the hallways nearly puts him to sleep.

He can’t sleep.

As soon as they reach the rest of this rag-tag group Fury’s out together, they all start talking about Loki—boring, really—and Tony lurks around Fury making comments that no one else can hear. It gets kind of depressing, because he’s the only one laughing and everyone’s all serious about the god they have locked up somewhere.

Wonder if I can find him…

He does.

“You again,” Loki says, and  _holy shit_ , he’s looking  _right_  at him.

“Uh…” Tony is torn between freaking out and keeping it cool. He attempts cool. “Me again, sure.”

“What are you?”

“Dead, actually. What are you?”

Loki sneers, “not dead.”

“Well that’s fascinating and all, but why are you still here?” Tony asks, passing through the glass as easy as ever. Loki tracks his movements like a hungry animal, and regardless of his ghost-ness, Tony goes no where near him.

“I was captured,” the god remarks, not taking his eyes off of him. “You seem to be a bit behind on current events.”

Tony shrugs. “Again, dead. I’m behind on everything. Except, well, you.” He points a finger a Loki. “Bull- _shit_  you’re 'captured’. I watched you pop out of no where with the Tesseract, I seriously doubt some glass is gonna stop you. What’s your game, Rock of Ages?”

“Rock of what?” Loki asks, nose wrinkled in an almost cute way. “No, never mind that, I have no reason to answer your inquiries. Although, it is a rather sad state of affairs that the dead seem more observant than these so-called heroes.”

“Well, we can’t blame them for that, not everyone’s a genius,” Tony quips, and realizes too late that he’s downright grinning at the guy. He can’t help it, it’s the first conversation he’s had in months, and it’s  _fun_.

“I see no geniuses here,” Loki drawls, smirking up from his seat like he’s the king of fucking everything.

Tony huffs, but doesn’t dignify that with a response. He was a genius. Albeit, a dead one, but he was still  _here_  so that had to account for something.

He still had his damn brain.

“Now let me ask  _you_  something, ghost. Why are you here? Before, at my arrival, as well.”

“I have no reason to answer your inquiries,” Tony parrots back, and crosses his arms. That seems to tick Loki off, which is funny because ha-ha, can’t touch me.

“Listen you mere  _scrap_  of soul—!”

“Who are you talking to?”

Both Tony and Loki jump at the new voice, and Tony ends up backing up into Loki.

Into him.

Like,  _bump._

Like real live angry god pressed against his god damn back and he doesn’t  _have_  a back to be pressed against anymore so  _what the fuck?!_

Tony squeals when Loki shoves him away, and Natasha Romanoff stares at them, looking almost concerned.

“Having some trouble with the air, Loki?”

“Leave,” Loki snaps, eyes flickering to the side where Tony stands gaping at him.

“You can feel me!”

“I have some questions for you,” Natasha continues, as if Loki’s behavior is typical for interrogations. “I want to talk about a trade.”

Loki spits out a, “I have nothing to say to you,” and makes a point of not looking at Tony anymore.

And that’s just not done, not when someone can finally fucking  _see_  him again.

So Tony wafts his way over to stand next to the red-head while Loki narrows his eyes at him.

“I want to know what you’ve done to Agent Barton.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Tony interrupts, “complimented his heart. It was touching.”

Loki’s lip twitches.

“I… I would say I expanded his mind,” he says, glare intensifying as Tony walks in circles around Natasha.

“And once you’ve won?” She asks, his expression passive as always. “Once you’re King of the mountain, what happens to his mind?”

“Good question,” Tony says from over her shoulder, smirking at Loki. “What are you here for, again?”

Loki’s eye is twitching now, and the smirk he has on now is clearly forced.

“Oh, is this love, Agent Romanoff?”

“Love is for children.”

Tony sighs, “And Song writers.”

“I owe him a debt.”

Then it’s all blah blah blah, red ledger, yellow ledger, whatever. Tony watches both of them start to get worked up, and starts humming.

This was supposed to be something exciting, but Loki was ignoring him and no one else could see or hear him and he really could use a drink right now.

He misses drinking.

“You’re a monster!”

Then Natasha does the damndest thing, she starts crying and turns away from Loki. So, Tony bends over and inspects this shocking occurrence, only to find that she’s not crying, she’s just… waiting.

“Huh, you’re being played,” Tony comments loud enough for the god to hear.

Over his shoulder, Tony sees Loki freeze in a whole new way. He’d really gotten carried away there, down right mono-logging for a moment.

Bad villain, everyone knows villainry 101 states:  _Don’t talk about your fucking plans to the hero, you idiot._

“Perhaps I am,” Loki says carefully, and Tony whips his head around just in time to catch Natasha’s flash of irritation. She doesn’t bother to turn around again after that, just matches right out of the room without another word.

“Well, that was kind of exciting,” Tony says after a long moment of silence.

“Not particularly,” Loki replies.

He must live a thrilling life.

* * *

 

Apparently, the 'monster’ thing was some kind of plan, because there’s screaming and explosions and something is fucking  _roaring_  out there.

Tony sighs, wishing he was alive, and sits on the floor next to Loki. The god isn’t paying attention to him at all, just standing and waiting for something. It just figures the one person he can contact is busy trying to take over the world.

His world.

He should care more about that, probably. But what can he do?

“So I take it this is your escape plan?”

“Something like that,” Loki mumbles, not taking his eyes off of the outer door.

“Why did you let them take you in here, again?”

“I did not say.”

“You could say, it’s not like I’ll give you away.”

Loki turns a fraction of an inch to stare down at him. There’s something in his expression that kills Tony’s smile dead.

“What? Seriously, you’re the only person who can see or hear me.”

“And feel you,” the god adds, his lip curling into a sneer. “There is something about you I simply cannot—”

A clunk and the echo of running footsteps interrupts whatever he was going to say, and suddenly Loki’s not in the glass cage anymore. He’s standing just outside of it, and oh look, there’s Thor running full speed ahead.

Tony steps out of the way just as the blonde comes diving into the cell, and the door slides shut.

Loki’s voice comes from across the room,“Will you ever not fall for that?”

“He’s fallen for that before?” Tony asks, stepping up beside Loki and watching his brother bang on the glass. The entire thing lurches, and Loki looks way too happy about this for his little concerned expression.

“Yes, he’s a fool.”

“The big guys usually are.”

Thor stops hammering on the glass and stares at Loki with a weird mix of concern and anger.

“Loki, who is it you are speaking to?”

“No one of importance.”

“Hey!” Tony huffs, elbowing— _he can actually elbow!_ —Loki in the side. “Tony Stark, and I’ll have you know I was a very important man.”

“Well, Stark, you aren’t anymore,” Loki sneers, and waves a hand a Thor. “As for you dear brother, shall we test your durability?”

“Loki!”

“Was that a 'yes’?” He purrs, cupping a hand to his ear while the other toys with the button that will send the blonde tumbling down some 50,000 feet.

“Wasn’t a no,” Tony says.

“Loki, do not do this!”

Loki does it.

Tony wonders if there’s something wrong with him, because he laughs.

* * *

 

  
They review the footage for the third time before Fury tells them to get out of here and do your damn jobs.

The third time is the same.

“He said 'Stark.’”

“He said he was talking to Stark,” Steve confirms, crossing his arms over his chest. He’d never had the chance to meet Howard’s son, which might have been a good thing. Every video he found on the internet about the guy was really unflattering and kind of insulting to the Stark name. But, well, he was also a genius, but then he also made weapons, but so did Howard and—

Steve lets out a breath and shakes himself out of it.

He was too late for Howard and his son, there was no reason to linger on it.

“I don’t know why he mentioned him, but that’s not important right now. We need to get to New York.”

Beside him, Coulson nods to what’s left of the team, Romanoff, and the recently returned Barton.

“We’ve lost two, let’s not lose any more, people. Be on the jet in three minutes tops.”

The men all begin to leave.

Agent Romanoff stares at the screen a little bit longer.

“Agent?” Coulson asks from the door.

“Coming.”

* * *

 

  
Tony was okay with everything until a point, and maybe there really  _is_  something wrong with him because he feels like he should have cared sooner. Like maybe he shouldn’t have laughed when people got hurt or helped Loki in anyway, shape, or form.

He’s excused it away with the whole 'dead’ thing, but maybe that’s not a legitimate excuse since he’s pissed as all hell right now.

“ _My_  tower?!” He yells. “You couldn’t choose any other fucking building? There’s tons of them in this city alone. Mine’s not even the tallest, for christ sake!”

“Oh do be silent,” is all he gets in response, which, fuck you, I will not be spoken to like that ever again.

Tony advances on the god, lounging on his fucking chairs in his fucking penthouse. “Now you listen to me—”

“I’m done listening to your chatter. My army arrives soon,” Loki drawls, and all it takes is a flick of the wrist, and Tony’s body is disintegrating again.

He feels fear, of course. Mostly anger.

He’s crying again.

“Fuck you,” he rasps, and is gone.

….

What?

What’s going on now? God, it’s like living in a box.

He’s in a box.

No, a  _suit_.

“Please allow me to welcome you back, Mr. Stark,” chimes a familiar voice.

“Oh-ho hoooHEEELLLLLL YEEAAAAAHHH!”

Loki’s very surprised when he bursts out and basically runs him right over. Tony’s a little out of control here, seeing as he’s control the system with his entire… entity-thing inside the gummy bits rather than the HUD and physical triggers.

He smashes out the window and starts to fall.

I’m so graceful.

Jesus, it’s been too long.

Not  _that_  long, reign it in, Stark.

He may or may not have yelled, “WOOOHOOOOOO,” when he pulled out of the dive.

He does, however, aim a repulser at Loki’s chest when he finds his way back up to the window.

“So, you’re sex-on-legs and all, but you’re doing a big no-no and you’re doing it on  _my_  tower. I can’t let you do that, Dave.”

Loki’s snarling face is no where near as charming as it was before. Clearly something has shifted between them. Boo-hoo, what can you do?

Don’t destroy cities from my god damn tower, that’s what.

Loki’s aiming his scepter, so Tony shoots. Something above him decides to turn on, and Tony realizes he’s too late.

“Right, army.”

And JARVIS is right there with him, a two not-really-man team kicking ass and there’s just too many of them. Where’s that stupid team he didn’t qualify for?

Right, one of them fell out of the sky and you laughed, Tony.

Good job.

“Sir, there are several people attempting to contact you, shall I put them through?”

“Give me a summery of who it is,” he replies, sending out a burst of chaff to blind two of the alien ships riding up on his tail.

“One would be, I believe, Captain America. Another is Director Fury, he seems the most adamant to get through, and the other is Agent Romanoff.”

“Oh great,” Tony grumbles, banking a hard right down the street and causing a nice explosion behind him. “A bunch of people who know i’m dead trying to call me. I can’t even talk to them, anyway. Forget it.”

“I could connect you through my own system, sir. If you wish to speak over their frequency. I believe they are joining in the battle, themselves.”

“I guess that would be—shit!—handy,” he replies, spinning out of control from a shot striking out his left thruster. “Going down, reset the controls there.”

Tony lands harder than usual, which is fine and dandy size he has no body, and three very confused people stare at him.

“Stark?”

“Hi,” he says, and waves at Agent Romanoff.

“But… You’re dead.”

“Yep.”

“But… how?” This time the bird-name-guy is asking.

“I’ve been here this whole time. Anyway, army. See army? Shoot army. Sound good?”

The archer raises an eyebrow and fires to his side without even looking. “Wow, he’s a prick from beyond the grave.”

“Thrusters are at 30%,” JARVIS interrupts. “Running on back up power cells, only.”

Shit. He’s an idiot.

How did he forget he doesn’t have the arc reactor?

“Least I still have some personality,” Tony shoots back, and takes off again. “JARVIS, give me full power to the thrusters, then, and give me a time.”

“Ten minutes at medium capacity, sir.”

“Not ideal, but I’ve had worse.”

“Stark!”

“What?” Tony snaps back over the com, heading for a giant whale thing. He scans it and is impressed by its seemingly impregnable shell.

“I thought you were dead,” and it’s Fury, hooray.

“I am dead, really dead. Super not alive anymore and kind of busy. Can I help you with something?”

“I’ve got the sort of thing only you can handle, actually.”

“So sweet, let me guess, something that goes  _boom_?”

He’s not impressed with anyone right now. Of course SHIELD sends in the final option before the first, second, and third options have even been attempted. And Loki’s army is a bunch of unorganized bastards, which makes his job harder because they keep veering off to random buildings and entering them. Can’t they be like the civil war soldiers and line up for him all nice and perfect?

There’s that roar again.

Welcome back, monster.

“Nuke coming in hot,” Fury reminds him, maybe a second time. He’s having trouble concentrating.

“I got it,” he replies, and heads towards the signal. “Hey, JARVIS?”

“Sir?”

Tony smiles to himself, feeling the most human he’s felt since he died. Funny how an AI does that to you.

“Did you miss me?” He asks, lining himself up under the missile and forcing the fingers to curl into the metal.

“Incredibly so.”

If Tony had a heart, it would be swelling.

As it is, he’s feeling a little panicked here. Below him, there’s people he almost knows fighting wave after wave of aliens. It looks like Thor is flying around, and is that a giant green thing on his tower? That better not be more of Loki’s shit.

Loki.

Tony, you’re dead, there’s nothing there for you. You don’t even feel things normally anymore.

Yeah, but.

Put the bomb through the portal.

“Right.”

He does it, he angles the damn thing straight up and JARVIS has the audacity to ask if he wants to call Pepper. And maybe he owes her an explanation for the sudden reappearance of the Ironman, but he doesn’t think it will help.

He tells JARVIS to lie, and say it’s a self-functioning suit or something.

“That’s a one way mission,” someone says.

Tony has a feeling they forgot he’s already dead. Poor people.

“This’ll be fun.”

* * *

 

Apparently once you’re dead, space isn’t a problem. (Surprise!) The problem is when the power of his suit goes off, and he loses any hold he has on a physical or semi physical form.

It’s really dark out here.

He’s fading away.

God dammit, not again.

* * *

 

He’s not there when his suit crashes into the ground, but he hears it was an intense moment for everyone.

Apparently the green guy, who was Hulk-Bruce Banner—Tony misses all the  _good_  stuff—tried to 'wake him up’ and scared the shit out of everyone.

Too bad it was an empty suit.

Apparently everyone’s very interested in why Loki knew about him  _before_  the Ironman magically appeared.

And that’s why they’re here. Again. SHIELD is determined as shit to get ahold of Tony again. It’s not like they can just call him up and ask how he’s doing, and no one seems to trust Loki to mediate between them.

Not that Loki agreed to that, anyway.

“So, here we are again.”

He’s answered with a long, withering sigh.

“Oh come on,” Tony admonishes. “It could be worse. You could be dead.”

“Then I would be without your  _delightful_  company,” Loki grumbles.

“I know, right? What a depressing thought.”

Loki sighs again, just as long and just as withering.

They’re both sitting in another glass cell, but this time Thor busted out some shackles for Loki that seem to keep him in check. They look heavy, and Tony has thoughts about removing them that are not going to be listened to.

Not yet, anyway.

“Why me?” Loki asks no one.

“Must be your winning personality that keeps drawing me back.”

“I hate you.”

“Guess not. Maybe your legs?”

Loki jerks his head up and squints at him.

“What of my legs?” He asks, looking down to inspect them himself. Tony helps by running a hand over one of them, because he can.

“They’re nice. Totally worthy of my attention.”

“Need I remind you: you’re  _dead_.”

Tony grins at the god like it’s Christmas.

“I’ve never felt more alive.”

Loki’s lips twitch, just a little.

Tony’s suddenly really glad he’s still here. Well, not here. Sort of. He is, but he’s not.

It’s complicated.


	2. Outlived Your Use

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now that the Avengers are made aware that Tony's dead-not-dead, they have some questions for him. Only, they don't actually know him, so it's nothing heartfelt, or anything like that. It's all about permitting access to his inventions.
> 
> Luckily, Loki doesn't seem keen on playing mediator, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess i'm continuing this. XD

 

Now that everyone knows that Tony is dead-not-dead—everyone being the wonder team he had once been invited to join, Fury, and Loki—they suddenly demanded his attention. Like they even thought about him for the past two months. But nooo, now he’s here, and now they want to ask him questions. Which means they need Loki to mediate the conversation, because guess what?   
  
That’s right, Loki’s still the only one who can hear him. 

 

As it turns out, Loki also sucks at the whole ghost translator thing, to absolutely no one’s surprise. 

 

“Tell them to stop with the Ghost Busters crap,” Tony says, “It’s obviously not working and it’s giving me a headache just looking at it.” 

 

“He wishes for you to continue using you primitive technology to make contact with him, “ Loki says instead. 

 

Tony leans heavily against he god’s back and groans, “Why do I bother with you? No, why do _they_ bother?” He leans over Loki’s shoulder and yells across the table, “WHY DO YOU BOTHER?!” 

 

Loki hisses, and headbutts him away from his ear. “I _can_ hear you, you know. No need to shout.” 

 

It’s funny, because he has to use his head instead of his hands since said hands are currently chained up. That and it doesn’t hurt Tony at all, so he snickers at the god’s pathetic-ness and goes back to leaning on his back. 

 

“He’s shouting?” Natasha asks, sounding concerned. Tony’s touched, really. Okay, so he’s not because she’s been asking Loki all sorts of questions about him, like, ‘ _Where did he store his suits_?’ 

 

‘ _Who placed the suit in the tower, and why?_ ’

 

‘ _Ask him to give us access to JARVIS_ ,’ because that’s totally something Tony would _ever_ do. Even if JARVIS could save the world with his big, AI brain, Tony would still say ‘no’. With great power comes a great big, loud ‘NO.’ 

 

“He has fallen silent,” Loki sighs, trying to wiggle his way free from Tony’s ghostly weight. Now that’s a thought. 

 

“Am I heavy?” he asks while digging his chin into Loki’s shoulder. He can almost feel the leather under his chin, he can almost hear his beard scratch against the fabric. And yeah, touching Loki offers the pleasant illusion of warmth that Tony’s craved since he died. Just warmth, nothing creepy about it.

 

 Death is cold, dammit. 

 

“You are obnoxious,” Loki began, staring straight ahead at Agent Romanoff. “Unhelpful, violent, crass, short, and dead. So, no, you aren’t particularly heavy.”

 

“‘Violent’, he scoffs. That’s rich, coming from you, Genghis Khan.” 

 

“Yet you did not dispute all the others,” Loki reminds him out, and at this point, they’re both completely ignoring the glaring agent across the table from them. Which they end up doing pretty much every time they drag him in here. Not that Tony minds all that much, this is the most excitement he’s had since he got to fly in his suit again.

 

“I cannot confirm nor deny anything.” 

 

“Then shut up.”

 

“Actually,” Natasha interrupts, leaning closer to them with an air of impatience. “How about you don’t shut up, and start answering my questions, Stark.” 

 

Tony rolls his eyes and grumbles, “I’m trying to, but this cheerful elf here keeps twisting my words.” 

 

“He says he would rather copulate with a wooden spoon,” Loki provides, with a smile. 

 

And that’s pretty much every meeting they’ve had for the past two weeks. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They sleep together. 

 

Which, what? Come on, he has no one else. He literally has no one else, and Loki’s warm. 

 

Loki’s alive. 

 

It’s nice. 

 

_Besides_ , Tony had mused silently, _it’s the most innocent ‘sleeping together’ i’ve done since I was 12._

 

And that’s all it is, _sleeping_. Something which Loki fought off at first, elbowing Tony away, kicking, spitting, hissing, puffing up his invisible tail. It was all very cute and surly, but Tony wants warm, and death did nothing to cure his stubbornness. 

 

By the sixth day, Tony manages to slip between Loki and the wall, curling against the man’s back and going very, very still. And nothing happens. No flailing or yelling, just the bitter silence of surrender. 

 

Tony smiled for hours, and for the first time since he died, he might have actually slept. 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**2 Months, 3 Weeks, and 6 Days Previous**

 

There’s copper on his tongue, and bile in his throat. He’s tried, oh, how he’s tried to fix this, to stop this, to delay it for as long as possible. That injection was supposed to tide him over until his great, big brain fixed all his problems, as usual. Never had a chance to get rescued, this time. No Yinsen to fix the holes in his chest and tell him to get off his ass. 

 

Not that he was _on_ his ass. 

 

Tony’s done everything he can think of, and still, those black veins crawl. He’s thrown up his super juice in the trash can again, something Pepper has assumes is due to alcohol consumption. Joke’s on her, he hasn’t had a drink in months.

 

But, well, she’s convinced that he’s going through his so-called ‘Second Mid-Life Crisis’, which means she’s taking everything personally. She tends to do that when he has a break down, and it’s the damnedest thing. 

 

_Like I want to die, jesus Pepper._

 

“ _It’s nothing personal,”_ he wants to tell her, _“I just fucked up worse than badly this time.”_

 

Palladium = Not good idea.   
  
Tony = not genius. 

 

He laughs, which is kind of horrible because you can _tell_ he’s dying. You can hear it.   
  
Suddenly, the term, ‘death rattle’ makes a lot of sense to Tony. 

 

He lasts three more days, and each one is fucking awful. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

**2 Months, 4 Weeks, and 1 Day Later**

 

Stupid Thor arrives. 

 

And it is ‘Stupid Thor’, with a capital ‘S’, because he goes and ruins everything. 

 

  
“I refuse,” Loki states clearly for the tenth time, and Tony’s right there with him. You tell him, sister. Brother. _Adopted_ brother. 

 

Stupid Thor, of course, does not accept this as an answer, “You cannot refuse, these are the terms of your punishment.” 

 

“I may refuse, and biding by the rules of your precious Asgard, you cannot forcibly remove me from any holding cell that was procured at the time of my arrest. I am allowed this much of a choice, at the very least.” 

 

Tony makes a face, and rolls over to look up at them from the floor. He had moved away from Loki the second Thor walked in, because, seriously, Tony swore he could see spikes coming out of the guy’s back like a porcupine. The floor was safer. 

 

“That’s a stupid rule,” he says to Loki. 

 

“It’s to keep certain criminal types safe, actually.” 

 

Thor’s getting that confused look for only the fourth time since he’s arrived. Daaww. 

 

“And how does it do that?” Tony asks, politely not commenting on the term ‘criminal’ right there. 

 

Loki finally drags his eyes away from the ‘ I Hate You Staring Contest’ to sneer at Tony, “There were too many instances of prisoners ‘accidentally’ dying upon transfer. One too many cases of ‘slipping and falling on a knife’.” 

 

Tony sniggers. Even Asgard has stupid people, how humbling. Stupid Thor just has to interrupt: 

 

“Brother, they told me some specter has taken residence with you but…” 

 

“But you think me mad,” Loki finishes for him, and there he goes again, back to the staring contest. Loki was a long time member of the ‘If Looks Could Kill’ brigade. “Far be it for me to ask you to give me some semblance of trust, but even you should not take ghosts so lightly.” 

 

Thor looks uncomfortable now, which is a nice look on him, really. He shifts in his seat a few times, and quickly casts a glance around the room. 

 

“They said he was present during the battle, this deceased mortal. Is he here now?” 

 

“Oh, isn’t this precious,” Tony drawls, floating up from the floor and leaning one elbow on Loki’s shoulder. “I think it’s time your family meets your new hubby, me.”

 

“He is _not_ family,” Loki spits, shrugging Tony off with a single, jerky shrug. He really was too good at that, but as long as he doesn’t make Tony do the fading away thing again, he’ll keep coming back for more. 

 

 

“What is he saying, Loki? Why has he attached himself to you?”

“It’s of no importance.” Loki waves his hands dismissively, drawing attention to the bulky shackles that apparently kept his power in. Tony still had ideas about that, but he hasn’t figured out how to touch anything other than Loki yet, which meant the tools he needed to remove them with were out of the question. “Now, about my punishment, why not leave me here?” 

 

“Why do you wish to stay?” Thor demands. “I do not think you know what you ask of me, brother.” 

 

“I am not a fool, Thor, I know—“ 

 

 

“He would have me take your magic, “ Thor rasps. “Permanently.” 

 

Loki’s body, which, since Tony had met him, had always had a fluid, restless feel to it, went dead still. He wasn’t moving, or blinking, or breathing. It was almost as if those few, simple words had sent him somewhere else entirely. 

 

“He _wouldn’t_.” 

 

“Father made his will clear to me. You are to return home with me to face your trial, or you are to live as a mortal for the so few years a human life lasts.” 

 

Tony lets out an insulted, “Hey!” 

 

But Loki’s expression does a nasty pinching thing that’s sort of terrifying, and he hisses, “When your king does not follow his own laws and rules, you still follow him to Asgard’s ruin?” 

 

“He breaks no rules, Loki, and I will follow his guidance in this matter.” The blonde god pauses, a flicker of pain ghosting across his face before it returns to the same, stern look he walked in with. “My judgement of you is tainted, I cannot choose wisely in regards to you any longer.” 

 

“You could never choose wisely in any regard,” Loki spits, and turns away from his brother to signify that this conversation was over. Or maybe it’s something else, Tony wonders, because there’s some hurt in those green eyes that Tony’s never seen before—and it’s gone the second Loki focuses on him. 

 

Shutters down, no one’s home. 

 

“You do know that neutrality is the worst lie,” Tony says quietly, as if Thor could hear him anyway.“Smiles work better.” 

 

Loki just stares at him, blank and emotionless as a block of slate. But when he speaks, his voice is full of all the exhaustion he refuses to express.

 

 “They never worked for me.” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

The sun’s only been up for ten minutes, so particles of water still cling to everything. Well, everything except Tony. He’s not cling-able anymore, but he has his own worries when it gets foggy like this. Like maybe he’ll disappear into that fog and become nothing again. 

 

It’s only happened twice since he died, the fading away thing, but it sits in the far back of his mind where worries about death used to lurk when he was alive. Maybe humans never stop being afraid of dying, even when they’re already dead. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to become one with low-tide smelling fog. He deserves better than that. 

 

  
He deserves better than this, too. 

 

“If he leaves, we’ll never make contact with Stark again.” 

 

“We still don’t even know if that was true, or just a ploy to get our attention.” 

 

“We saw him,” Agent Romanoff argues, and she’s got water clinging to her leather suit in the best way possible. Not that Tony’s looking. “We saw the suit fly, we _talked_ to him, sir. He’s here.” 

 

“You talked to an AI who, if you recall, is the product of a certain ex-genius.” Fury did his ‘This is Final’ arm crossing technique. 

 

“Trust me sir, no one’s as annoying as Stark, and I recognized his flying pattern. If we could just get him back in a suit, we could—“

 

“We tried that,” Fury grunted. “So either Stark doesn’t want to talk, JARVIS got bored and played a trick on us, or Loki got bored and put up a diversion. Either way, Stark’s not talking, and Loki’s gotta go.” 

 

And he was pretty much gone already. The god is just standing there, arms slack at his sides, head bowed down enough for his muzzled-chin to rest against his chest. He looks small, and sad, and alone. He looks defeated. 

 

“Hey,” Tony calls out, stopping to drift a few feet away from him. Thor’s busy sealing up the Tesseract thing in a tube, and everyone else was milling around doing nothing important. He had time.“Hey, aren’t you going to say goodbye?” 

 

Loki’s body twitches, which might have been a laugh—or a fart, who the hell knows—and nothing else happens. Tony’s about to lose his one connection to pretty much everything, and the bastard won’t even look at him. 

 

“I said ‘hey’, you fucker,” Tony snarls, ghost-stomping up to the god and tilting his head right up under Loki’s face. “You blew up half my city. You nearly destroyed my world, which has a lot of people I kind of like in it, and you personally insulted me by using my power to do it.” 

 

Suddenly, Loki’s eyes seem to have some life in them, and he lifts his head up just enough to get a good glare going. It was a shame about the gag, though, Tony misses the scowl. 

 

“But you’re also the only thing I can touch, and talk to, and hear, and smell—sort of—and I kind of don’t want to lose that.” 

 

The glare intensifies.

 

“I also just wanted to say thanks for making things interesting for a while there. I thought I was going to die of boredom before you showed up.” 

 

One eyebrow goes up, and Tony counts that as an improvement. Oh, but there’s something else there, not just that skeptical brow thing, or the slowly rekindled flame of life that’s steadily growing stronger. It’s something new, and Tony had no idea what it’s called, so he tentatively labels it as ‘Curious Hope’. 

 

“Okay, i’m going to just ask you this, and you need to nod for ‘yes,’ and shake your head for ‘no’, It’s international—probably intergalactic—you can’t mess this up. You ready?” 

 

Loki looks like he might not play this game, and possibly head-butt Tony out of existence, until he slowly nods a ‘yes’. 

 

“If I grab onto you, can I make it through to wherever you’re going?” 

 

Loki shrugs. 

 

“Oh for—fine, that’s a ‘maybe’?” 

 

Loki nods. 

 

“80% chance I make it?” 

  
Shrug.

 

“50%?” 

  
There’s a pause, and another slow nod. 

 

“And if I don’t make it, will I be left here?” 

 

This time, it’s a ‘no’ and a shrug. For fuck’s sake, Loki has one job to do and he just has to make it complicated. 

 

“Okaay,” Tony mutters, “Okay, so I get this feeling that if I do this, and I don’t end up where you end up, i’m pretty much gone. Poof! Game over! No restart.” 

 

Tony swear’s Loki is smiling under that thing when he nods this time, the bastard. 

 

“That’s not optimal, but at this point I’ve got nothing left. No one else can see, hear, touch me, and even if they could, all they’ve wanted since they noticed my ghost was my inventions.” He flashes a rueful smile for himself, and casts a quick glance in Thor’s direction. He was coming closer, looking at Loki with a strange expression. Probably all the nodding and shoulder twitching has him worried.

 

“Okay,” Tony hurries on, reaching out to grab Loki’s hands. “Last question before it’s go time.” 

 

Loki’s fingers curl against his palm so faintly, Tony wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t hypersensitive to touch these days. It’s a sign, it has to be.

 

“Are you sure you want me there?” 

 

A handle gets shoved through his stomach toward’s Loki’s hands, and it feels weird, but Tony refuses to look away until he has his answer. Of course, Loki is an asshole who thrives on complications, so he doesn’t nod, shake his head, or shrug.   
  
He simply yanks Tony against his chest, grabs the handle of the transporter thing, and gives it a twist. 

 

And Tony?   
  
He screams, and screams, and screams. 

 


End file.
